


Nothing Gold Can Stay

by Clocketpatch



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Alien Culture, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Poetry, Possession, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-09-09
Updated: 2007-09-09
Packaged: 2018-01-02 14:12:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 16,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1057738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clocketpatch/pseuds/Clocketpatch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Romana saves the Doctor's butt, the universe, and some newt people.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Much love to Fleurdetemps for kicking my butt into a self-editing frenzy and making me cut a whole lot of waffle (granted, I almost immediately replaced the deleted waffle with new waffle... mmm... waffle). I started writing this ages back, but decided that I would only post it once it was finished, done, complete. So enjoy! (hopefully)

The fern lent a touch of life to Romana's otherwise austere white room. She had bought it at a small garden shop on that blue and green planet the Doctor was so fond of. A small care book, which the dimpled old lady running the shop had passed Romana with her purchase, detailed how it was best to use a spray bottle to give the planet its required moisture intake since this duplicated the rain and humidity of its natural environment.

Romana thought this very sensible. She also liked the way the water beaded on the finely frilled emerald leaves. It had a sort of random beauty. She had come to like randomness and chance happenings more since her regeneration. It came from travelling with the Doctor she supposed, or perhaps it was only the typical turnover induced by a new body. Her last self had very nearly been obsessed with ordered rows, proper procedure, and other bureaucratic nonsense.

She was very glad to have put all of that silliness behind her. Though she still spent a good deal of time with her appearance, but clothes were important after all. On that day she wore tan quarter-lengths and a wide-necked white blouse with a small gold cat pin for a bit of sparkle. She wasn't sure about the pin.

The water made a tremblingly soft "whoosh" as Romana once again pulled the trigger on the spray bottle. Rainbow droplets drifted through the air, then scattered. She could smell sterile TARDIS air sweetened by rich loam and living fern. A faint vibration rose up from the floor, shaking the leaves of the plant, dispersing the water droplets perched there.

Romana frowned. This wasn't the way she had planned the day.

The ship rattled again, tossing the fern, the spray-bottle, and Romana to the floor. Dark bits of dirt, like coffee grounds, spread across the white tile. Romana steadied herself against the wall and rose to her feet, staggering as the ship lurched again. She pulled herself to her room's door and then out into the corridor. The Doctor was going to get a talking to when she reached the console room.

???

 

The Doctor wasn't in the console room. Romana checked all of them — primary, secondary and tertiary — all three deserted. She frowned. The TARDIS had finished its jerky landing by the time she completed her check. She wondered if —

No

He would wait for her wouldn't he?

She was hurt. Granted she had disliked the Doctor when they first met. He was a stubborn, old, egotistic, childish, churlish, unpredictable, irresponsible busy-maker. But he did grow on you. She had even started think, dare to believe, that maybe, possibly, she had grown on him as well. They did have quite a nice time in Paris.

But no, he was a stubborn, old, egotistic, childish, churlish, unpredictable, irresponsible busy-maker with no regard for other individuals, and he had gone off to enjoy wherever they had landed without so much as a by-your-leave for her; not that she cared overly — it wasn't as if she was some love-sick human or electronic dog that was constantly glued to his side with no independence or intelligence of her own — but he could have left a note.

Romana walked back to her room in a cloud of resentment, and promised herself that she would over-ride the randomiser and return to Gallifrey as soon as she finished watering her fern. The Doctor, obviously, never changed, and though she did enjoy seeing the universe, she was sick of seeing it at his leisure.

She never made it to her room.

"You look in a fine sulk Romana, would you like a jelly baby?"

The voice came from the open door of the library. Romana entered the room. It was a mass of clutter and quaint. A long, dark-mantled fireplace crouched in the mid-section of one book-heavy wall. It was a barbaric adornment, which she never understood before her regeneration — what was the point? The TARDIS life-support provided heat.

Even now she didn't fully comprehend it, but could admit that the flames had a nice cheery glow, and the thin smoke it produced gave off a strangely pleasant scent; something of wilderness and homeliness combined; something that might be a product of civilisation, but didn't follow any of its rules.

The Doctor sat cushioned in a large over-stuffed armchair with his socked feet positioned as close to the fire as he could manage without setting them alight, his face sunk deeply into a thin, page-worn paperback. On the floor beside him his hat and scarf twisted in a willy-nilly pile across the chestnut carpet. Romana disentangled the brown fedora from the snake-like scarf's embrace and placed it on his head. He immediately lifted the wide brim to reveal an annoyed look.

"Romana do you mind? I'm reading Robert Frost."

She ignored him. She didn't know who or what a Robert Frost was and didn't want to reveal her ignorance and gain a tiresome lecture for her trouble.

"We've landed," she said. Stating the obvious was always a good way to divert the subject.

"Oh, what? Yes I suppose we have." He stopped talking and settled back into his book.

He could be so incredibly infuriating at times.

"Doctor," she said a bit testily.

"What?" he said, dwarfing her little bit of testiness.

"Did you see where we landed?"

It was a ridiculous question. She knew perfectly well where they had landed. She had checked and confirmed their destination in all three console rooms.

"Ambeau," the Doctor said distractedly, "A quaint planetoid at the far end of the Jondet Spiral, remarkable for its low-gravity ecosystem. Beautiful scenery, peaceful inhabitants…" he sounded like he was quoting out of a brochure, "…I kicked the console when the randomiser picked the co-ordinates." His distraction turned to childish sulk. "My foot is still sore."

"It sounds gorgeous," said Romana.

"It's boring, dull, utterly uninteresting."

"No where you go is ever what I would term as boring Doctor."

He lowered his book.

"And what is that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing at all Doctor…" she let the moment draw out, let him work himself into a fine fury wondering. "…Only that trouble follows you closer than your own shadow, though I'm still not sure if you attract it, or it attracts you."

The Doctor snorted and raised his book again, concentrating deeply on the somewhat yellowed pages. Books were another thing that Romana only half understood. What was the point of pulping and slicing up fibrous organic material and printing on it when computerised viewpads could do the job with tenfold efficiency and less waste? An entire forest might have been demolished to provide the Doctor's extensive collection of books, yet he was always badgering the natives of various planets to avoid over-exploiting their environments. The hypocrisy of it boggled her mind, but the Doctor was a man of contrasts.

"No one has a shadow on Ambeau," said the Doctor suddenly, as if the thought had just occurred to him, "It's a trick of the light, or something or other." He waved one hand at nothing while keeping the other tight on his book. He had an incredibly smug look on his face, as if he had, with those words, refuted every argument she had ever posed against him. She pretended to ignore that look. If he wanted to stun her with his knowledge and experience than she could play along. Trick of the light indeed.

"Yes, I know," she said, "the wavelength coming from the system's sun refracts through a neighbouring dust cloud like a prism leaving…"

The Doctor snorted again.

"Leaving," Romana continued stubbornly, "the light slightly less dense than it would be normally. It's a remarkable natural phenomenon. I've always wanted to experience it."

He tucked into his book again, and drew his hat down until he didn't have to meet her eyes. Romana smiled at her small victory.

"Listen to this Romana: Nature's first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf's a flower; But only so for an hour…"

He was ignoring her. And asking for her opinion at the same time.

"It's a bit simplistic," she responded.

"A bit simplistic? A bit simplistic? A bit- this, Romana," he waved his free hand expansively, "is a work of great genius."

"I'm only saying that the rhyming scheme is a bit lacking, and the subject matter is cliché and over-wrought. I'm afraid I don't see what's so great about it."

The Doctor muttered something about her being unable to appreciate great art.

"Though," he commented to the fireplace, "it's probably not her fault with her breeding, and the conditioning she went through. Sad really." He flicked to a new page, leaving Romana feeling hurt that he blamed her for her upbringing. It wasn't as though she was responsible for how she had been raised. And hadn't he come from the same system as her?

The Doctor started reciting out loud again. Something about paths in a yellow wood, and a traveller. Some part of Romana found the poem familiar and not without merit. The rest of her felt like exploding on the Doctor and telling him exactly what he could do with his yellow woods, but she refrained and kept her Time Lady dignity.

"If it's just the same to you," she said, keeping a false bounce in her voice, "I'm going to take K-9 outside and look around."

"What? That's fine," the Doctor said. "If you wouldn't mind could you make two?"

Keeping her Time Lady dignity intact had never been so hard. Romana fairly huffed out of the library.


	2. Chapter 2

In truth he was sorry he had been rude to her. He brought her to far-flung corners of the galaxy on a quest she never asked to join, and then he stranded her in his TARDIS by way of the randomiser (he entirely discounted her claims that she could over-ride the mechanism at any moment and return to Gallifrey. He felt that if she had the slightest opportunity to stop travelling with him she would seize it immediately. After all, who wanted to travel through time and space with an ugly old lump like him?). He could stifle some part of his guilt by reminding himself that the randomiser was a necessity lest they both be destroyed by a vengeful Black Guardian, though surely she hated him for implementing it anyway? For trapping her?

In any case, she was taking the situation remarkably well considering. She even pretended to enjoy herself at times, and he found that remarkably considerate. It was cruel and immature of him to ignore her now that they had landed on a planetoid that caught her interest.

But he was hurt that she had dismissed one of his favourite poems so unceremoniously.

He finished the last page of his book—

(He could have sped-read the volume in seconds, but knew how profoundly unwise and unsafe it could be to rush poetry)

— and, sighing deeply, rose from his chair (singeing his right sock slightly as his foot brushed into the embers of the fire). He thought about grabbing another book, but his conscience really wouldn't leave him alone. He stretched like a cat and then lumbered like a bear into the hallway.

"Romana?" he called.

No response.

"K-9?"

He stalked the empty, white hallways and found no one. He was a bit hurt that Romana had actually gone through with her plan and left without him, but at the same time a wide smile stole across his face. He was proud of her.

Fiendishly proud of her.

His Romana. She had progressed so far from the snotty Time Lady who had been forced on him by the White Guardian. His smile didn't leave as he made his way to the primary console room.

He supposed that he should find her, not to apologise (she had gone on and insulted his choice of poem after all), but he had been alone on his other visits to Ambeau, and thought, perhaps, Romana's presence would make the dull planetoid more interesting. And he was feeling a bit lonely with neither her nor K-9 to talk to. It meant that he was alone with, and had to listen to, his own thoughts, and that was a frightening proposition.

With that in mind he strode through the TARDIS doors and onto the planetoid's surface.

???

"Romaaannnaaaa!"

His hands were cupped around his mouth as he called her name for the umpteenth time.

He waited for a moment before calling again. The planetoid had a very thin atmosphere as a result of its low gravity, and even with his Time Lord physiology and respiratory by-pass he found it taxing. The atmosphere was the reason he had been solo on his previous trips to the planetoid. His usual human companions simply weren't equipped to deal with that kind of environmental harshness.

In addition to there being very little air, the thin atmosphere resulted in a rather nippy climate and a high degree of solar radiation. Though, the tiny world was not without its benefits.

His breath regained, the Doctor bounced into the air. With only the mutest amount of gravity to hold him he jumped high and stayed hovering at the pinnacle of his leap for a good thirty seconds.

"Romaaannnaaaa!"

He took that thirty seconds to yell Romana's name, and to scan his surroundings for her. He did a mid-air twist covering 360degrees, his long scarf twirling and cutting the thin air behind him. Nothing.

Really the planetoid was quite pretty: long amber-swaying grass, blue cloud trees sprouting like so many neatly planted rows of indigo asparagus near one horizon, and a calm sandy-yellow sea lapping at the other. All of it was covered by a layer of sparkling frost, and the sky was lit with the most dazzling colours as a result of the nearby dust cloud. The only sounds came from his own shouting and some small humming insect that lived in the under-thatch of the grassland. It was all terribly dull. The Doctor had been roaming about looking for Romana for at least two Earth hours and he was bored out of his mind.

He caught his breath, and prepared to jump and call again.

He tried to remember what she was wearing, but his mind always went a bit fuzzy on such matters. As if clothing really mattered? He seemed to recall a pair of tan trousers and a white blouse. Shoes, shoes… what did shoes matter as long as one could walk in them? He wouldn't be able to see her shoes.

He'd barely be able to see her at all if his memories were correct: all blond and tan and white against an amber background.

If only Romana hadn't gone and taken K-9 with her. A quick scan by the little dog would have prevented all this jumping and shouting. Of course, jumping and shouting was quite a bit more fun than just relying on a machine.

It was also, he thought as he descended from yet another jump, a good deal more monotonous.

He didn't have time to think of much else, because almost immediately after his feet touched the ground a heavy weight struck him on the back of his head. The Doctor crumpled to the ground in slow motion, his fall accompanied by the sound of humming insects, their long note reaching a crescendo.


	3. Chapter 3

After awhile she began to believe him.

"boring, dull, utterly uninteresting."

It was, but pretty, very, very pretty. And her shadow (or lack there of) had been briefly amusing. She had since decided that she rather liked shadows, and that they made life a good deal more interesting.

The constant hum of the grass insects was starting to make her ears throb.

She regretted her dress-choice, since the long grass scratched at her bare ankles and the humming insects were also, apparently, biting insects. She was cold, and ridiculously tired for the amount of exertion she had put into her exploring.

It didn't help that she had to carry K-9.

Why couldn't the Doctor, in all his tinkering, give his electronic pet a useful upgrade — like all-terrain wheels?

Romana asked that question to a nearby blade of grass. It didn't answer.

"Why did I ever bother leaving the TARDIS?" she queried another non-respondent piece of vegetation.

K-9 whirred in her arms.

'Accessing data-banks, conversation with this unit twenty Earth minutes previous: Mistress was fed-up with Master's indifference. Left to explore phenomenon which interested her on small planetoid.'

Romana put down K-9 and picked the blade of grass that she had so recently questiond. She twirled it between her fingers considering whether or not it had any distant evolutionary relation to her fern. The odds were not. A similar basic structure and ecological purpose, but different genetic up-bringings, different histories, different worlds, different needs.

Plants and people had a lot in common, Romana decided.

She thought about writing a thesis on the subject.

"It was a rather nice poem," she said, looking around at the rainbow sky and amber landscape, "Nature's first green is gold don't you think K-9?"

The little dog's ears spun.

'Insufficient data Mistress.'

"Yes," said Romana. She dropped the blade of grass. "I suppose neither of us is capable of recognising fine art, but that's no great loss is it? I know what I like when I see it." She paused. "Oh listen to me K-9, I'm beginning to sound like him."

'Insuffi—'

"I know K-9," she cut him off. And sighed. And picked another blade of grass.

'Mistress!' the little dog piqued.

"I know K-9," said Romana. Honestly, the little robot did tax her patience sometimes.

A moment later she thought of another reason she liked shadows: they told you when someone (or many someones) were sneaking up on you. Of course little patience-taxing robot dogs could also serve that purpose when you listened to them.

"I'm sorry K-9," said Romana.

'Apology accepted.'

She was hemmed in by four of them: tall, frail looking creatures with pale amber skin and an uncanny resemblance to Gallifreyan fire newts. One for each point of the compass, said a thought at the edge of her mind, though she wasn't quite sure what that thought meant since every proper compass she knew of had at least sixteen points. Some fragment she had picked up somewhere, probably the Doctor, asserting itself in relation with stressful external events.

Romana knew that the Ambeau-ian's height and frailty was due to their evolution in a low-gravity environment. Their colour likely an adaptation to help them hide in the yellow grasslands.

She wasn't the least bit frightened since she knew the inhabitants of this world were peaceful — not because the Doctor had told her (she had learned long ago never to trust his opinion on such things), but because it had been written in one of her favourite textbooks back at the Academy. True, that had been only the most glancing of references, an appendix to an article on the light phenomenon. But she trusted it: It had been an Academy text after all.

Then the Ambeau-ian closest to the north point of the compass bent itself double and grabbed her. It was stronger than its frail appearance suggested. Romana struggled heartily as she was dragged away, but gained no purchase.

She decided that a certain Academy text was no longer her favourite, and that a certain Gallifreyian educational publishing outfit should have its licence revoked.

???

The Doctor awoke in a dark, dark place, hanging suspended from a piece of piping, his hands and arms lashed to it with his own scarf of all things.

How embarrassing: Romana was always lecturing him on how convenient it was for him to carry around a long piece of rope for his enemies to tie him up with, or hang him. He had always taken a long-suffering attitude to these lectures and patiently replied that his scarf was fine piece of textile work from the hands of the great Madam Nostradamus NOT a piece of rope.

The back of his head hurt a great deal, and the lack of light somehow made his eyes sting. It was like some beast had burrowed through the back of his brain and was trying to burst out through his eyeballs, but couldn't escape, and the pressure was building.

Then the lights came on and made everything ten times worse.

He recognised his location as the maintenance crawlspace between the inner and outer hulls of a starliner.

Crawlspace, though, was a misnomer. The claustrophobic space was very tall, its upper reaches bending off with the curve of the ship. It stretched outwards, curving away, from the Doctor on either side. But for all its stretch it was very narrow and choked with wires and piping.

He was suspended from a climate-control pipe, and with the light (its source a line of flickering bulbs meant to aid repair workers) the Doctor could see that his feet actually weren't that far from the grilled metal floor.

An alien stood in front of him. It was short and thick, green-warty, and wearing the remnants of a black and gray uniform. The left sleeve of the uniform (mostly torn off) was decorated at the shoulder by a three-pronged crest. The alien had three eyes. They blinked in rhythm: one, two three, and again. It held a long and heavy-looking piece of broken off pipe crusted with a dried red/orange substance at one end that the Doctor (rather regrettably) identified as his own blood.

The alien poked the Doctor, hard, in the gut with the piece of piping.

The Doctor ompfed, and closed his eyes, and opened them. Ignoring reality didn't seem to be working that day.

The alien poked him again.

"I'm sure I make a very good piñata," the Doctor said, trying to keep the tone light, "but I can assure you that I don't contain any candy."

One, two three. Poke. A bag of jelly babies dislodged itself from the Doctor's pocket and fell to the ground, scattering a small cascade of colourful sweets.

"It appears that I spoke too soon." The Doctor gave a wide grin, perhaps he was a piñata after all. It was a bit funny. He didn't mind laughing at a good joke.

Poke.

"I say, WOULD YOU STOP POKING ME?!"

Poke.

The Doctor was very quickly becoming irritated. He decided to use a different tactic.

"You're a Balutian aren't you? Rather a long ways from home wouldn't you say? There aren't any trading posts on this world. There are a few dull newty people, but they wouldn't interest you in the slightest. They have the most infernally dry poetry."

Poke.

"If you're stranded I could give you a ride back to your home planet. I have a ship parked nearby."

The Balutian seemed to consider this for a moment. It's eyes blinked: one, two, three. The Doctor started a sigh of relief, and was cut off by a vicious blow from the pipe.

"That was uncalled for!" he said, wincing and spinning.

Another blow followed. The Doctor's arms twisted painfully, bone grating on bone. The low gravity of the planetoid saved him from the pain of supporting his entire weight, but it also caused him to spin violently with every blow the Balutian struck.

Poke, whack, poke…

The attack finished as suddenly as it had begun, leaving both the Doctor and his tormentor breathing hard.

Blink: one, two three.

It was then that the Doctor noticed something intensely disturbing: the Balutian's eyes, despite their constant movement, were dead. A trio of lifeless, filmed black spheres. The alien's chest did not rise and fall with the patterns of life and breath. It seemed to be a member of the walking dead. The Doctor hesitated to think the word 'zombie'.

The Doctor ran through in his mind all of the situations which could lead to a dead Balutian poking another (unarmed) alien with a stick, and came up with no pleasant answers.

In the interim, the Balutian stopped blinking.

It stared upwards at the Doctor with its three dead eyes and the Doctor felt himself slipping. He could not turn his gaze away. There was a voice, a voice inside of him, a gnawing ache, an invasion of self.

Who are you? the Doctor asked the insidious presence.

The answer came like a low whisper over his senses, the hiss of a cobra, the first hint of breeze before a storm.

I am the companion to terror and the beginning of all fear.

I am pain.

It hit the Doctor like a wave, convulsing him in his bonds. The dead Balutian slumped to the floor and its delayed eternal rest. Slowly the Doctor stilled, but his mind was gone, his eyes tightly lidded. Though the maintenance lights still shined with flickering brazenness the renegade Time Lord hung in darkness.


	4. Chapter 4

The four Ambeau-ians walked in-line, cutting a path across the grassy landscape. They were headed towards the blue forest on the far horizon, a destination that became closer with each passing footstep. Romana walked beside the lead Ambeau-ian a restraining newt-hand on her shoulder at all times. She didn't know where she was being led or why, but realised that running might not be a successful solution to her predicament. That, and she was curious.

"This stroll would be far more enjoyable if I knew the destination," she pestered, expecting silence.

Romana had attempted reason with her captors many times since being plucked up, but to no success. The buzzing, biting grass insects made for better conversation partners than the Ambeau-ians. They simply wouldn't speak. Not even when she told them that their actions were unconstitutional according to Gallifreyian law and could be construed as an act of war (total nonsense of course, her own actions, simply by being on their planetoid without permission were far more in violation of the constitution: Article 1:29 — non-interference).

She had begun to theorise that her captures were mute when she was startled with a reply.

"Must not," the Ambeau-ian holding her said. Its voice was long and whispery, like silk poured over butter, yet strangely hesitant, as if speaking was an unnatural act.

"Why is that exactly?" asked Romana, slightly shocked at getting a response, but not missing a beat.

The Ambeau-ian returned her question with silence and wide staring amber eyes.

"There is no reason for you to be holding me. If you were to let me go I would return to my ship. I mean your people no harm."

"Mustn't," the Ambeau-ian holding her breathed for a second time.

"Why not?" asked Romana, quite hoping that her captors would be willing to speak with her now that they had learned how to talk.

"Danger," said an Ambeau-ian further back in the line.

"What kind of danger?" asked Romana.

"Danger."

They all began to repeat the word. A soft chant to meet the swaying of the grass. A murmur that spoke of fear.

"If you told me what the problem is," said Romana, in a tone she reserved for small children and the Doctor, "I might be able to help you."

The chant ceased.

"Mustn't," said the lead Ambeau-ian.

They journey continued in silence after that, and Romana gritted her teeth in frustration. She had felt close to discovering something, and she hated to have answers snatched away from her. She liked to be on top of the situation; that was something that had transcended her regeneration. It came, she knew, from the cut-throat atmosphere at the Academy. Sometimes she wondered what other personality traits she might have unwittingly acquired there.

The Ambeau-ians brought Romana to a village built on the outskirts of the blue forest. It consisted of grass huts that looked like down-turned woven baskets stretched lengthways and vertically. Airy windows were placed in the structures at intervals that would seem to necessitate a loss of support and collapse. Such architecture was only possible in extremely low gravity.

Romana was led to the largest hut, and urged inside by the lead Ambeau-ian. She entered. Her captors stayed outside.

Rays of spun gold decorated the inside of the hut as the outside light diffused through the straw walls. The tawny illumination was dappled with green and blue shadows cast by the nearby forest. Shadows. They were everywhere, chasing and being chased by patches of brightness. Romana had a shadow. She greeted it like a long lost friend, surmising that the effect of the dust cloud on the planetoid's sun's light-weight was negated by the hut's fine-woven walls. She confirmed this theory by observing that she did not have a shadow when she stood in front of one of the windows.

A large, red-orange Ambeau-ian sat, enthroned on a pile of straw, at the far end of the hut. Romana went to him(her?) and curtseyed (a gesture of respect the Doctor had taught her which seemed to be accepted by most primitive cultures). When Romana returned to her standing pose she was straight and stiff. She did not degrade her voice into terms for addressing royalty or high authority.

"I wish to know why I have been brought here?" she asked, "If you have a problem I may be able to aid you with it, but first you must tell me what it is."

There was no spoken response to Romana's calmly composed speech, but the Ambeau-ian rose from its throne of hay and took a step towards her, then another. Standing, the red-orange Ambeau-ian was twice as tall as the individuals who had brought Romana to the village. It crinkled like an accordion when it bent over to look her in the eye. Romana waited.

Long moments of nothing happened. Four Ambeau-ian eyes, orange and milky, shifted over Romana's face.

The Doctor would know how to respond — he always did. Romana had a certificate stating that she was top of her class at the Academy (had, back in her sleeping cubicle on Gallifrey, in her new life she had nothing). The Doctor lacked any real qualification. Nothing tangible. No certificate. But he had charisma, and experience, and —

Romana missed him. She had missed him all day. Exploring the amber fields would have been twice as fun with him by her side, arguing with K-9 and making strange stream-of-consciousness comments. Even being captured would have been somewhat enjoyable with him present.

He could make the worst situations seem trivial. He could confound panic with a jelly baby.

Romana suddenly felt very homesick. And also very frustrated with her current situation.

"I'm trying to help you!" she shouted, clearly startling the Ambeau-ian who was inspecting her. "Bring me back!"

The Ambeau-ian took a few steps away from her. Romana bit her lip, and tried to regain her breath; she hadn't meant her voice to come out as loudly as it had — or at all really.

"You come without fear," the Ambeau-ian announced. "You bring no pain."

"You're right; I'm not afraid," said Romana, trying to show her composure. She was though. Terribly.

The Ambeau-ian returned to its seat.

"You are from-" it raised a long many fingered hand to point at the roof. Streaks of light were stabbing through the grassing weaving. Romana noticed a faint webbing between the Ambeau-ian's digits. It hung like a wisp of red-orange smoke.

"Yes," Romana answered.

"Do you run?"

Romana furrowed her brow. From what? To whom? Or was it a question of ability? Could she run?

"I can," she said.

The Ambeau-ian seemed to consider this for a moment before letting out a sigh which sounded like steam bubbling in the Doctor's kettle.

"There is danger," it said.

Romana nodded, concealing her exasperation. She knew.

The Ambeau-ian sighed again and waved its long, faintly webbed hand. Romana understood. She curtseyed a second time and left the hut.


	5. Chapter 5

They treated her very nicely, but made it clear she would not be leaving the village.

Romana was given a small hut to herself. An Ambeau-ian, yellow and young enough to match her in height, brought her dinner at dusk when the dust-cloud sky changed from its shimmering rainbow to mute blue. The food was also blue, or some of it was: livid indigo sprouts that looked like small versions of the trees in the alien forest bordering the village, steamed and served with a cobalt sauce of indeterminable origin. There was a side of sun-hued bread.

Romana thanked the young Ambeau-ian and tucked in. The food was palatable, though the bread felt gritty against her tongue and the spicy blue sauce was too hot for her tastes.

She made a motion for drink. The young Ambeau-ian left and returned a moment later with a skilfully woven container full of a cool, sweet liquid that tasted like nectar and left a soothing, tingling sensation at the back of her throat.

The young Ambeau-ian tending to her had not yet spoken. He stared down her neck as she ate in a most discontenting way.

"Is something wrong?" asked Romana. She found it difficult to read these newt people. They were primitives, and as such their emotions should have been stewing the air, easy for a Time Lady who had bested her class in telepathy to pick up. Yet, they were not. Psychic activity of any kind was strangely absent from the Ambeau-ians. Romana was forced to read their body language instead, which was always a difficult prospect when dealing with a completely foreign race. They were newts for Rassilon's sake.

That said, the young one became very easy to read after Romana posed her question. It hunched into itself like it was guarding a great secret.

"You can tell me," said Romana.

"Danger," the young Ambeau-ian moaned, the word stretched with effort.

"Yes, I know about the danger. Would you be so kind as to tell me about the danger?"

"It came from-" The young one pointed a shivering hand at the roof.

"The sky?" Romana supplied. She had nearly said stars, but realised that the Ambeau-ians would have no knowledge of such things. Their world was blanketed in a tight duvet of stellar dust.

"It fell." The Ambeau-ian punctuated its laboured remarks with heavy breathing. "It fell and made a home in the ground. Some few emerged. They ran…"

Romana remembered the red-orange leader's question. A sinister breeze swept through the back of her mind, but she couldn't place the direction it blew from or what it might mean. Feeling distinctly unsettled at her inability to analyse, she ploughed ahead searching for more evidence to plug into her mental equations.

"What happened then?" she asked, urged.

"Mustn't say."

"You must."

"Mustn't say."

The young one ran out of the hut. Romana was left once more to solitude and glum thoughts. She felt more than a bit irritated at the repetitive nature of her communications with the Ambeau-ians thus far.

"At least," she said out loud to a bug crawling along the earthen floor, "the Doctor will be sure to look for me."

And he would be able to talk some sense into these newt people, or perhaps she would be able to do that herself come morning. In the meantime there was no need for any daring escape attempts. Not that they would be especially daring — she knew that the hut she was in wasn't guarded. From what she had gleaned the Ambeau-ians hadn't brought her here to keep her prisoner, or in preparation for any sinister primitive rituals (thank the Other, she'd had more than enough of that in her last life), but rather to keep her safe from… something.

Romana pushed food around her plate. She felt suddenly concerned for the Doctor's well being, because if there was danger out there, stalking the golden fields and indigo forests of Ambeau, the Doctor would be the one to find it.

She sighed.

"I can see you," she said to the door of the hut.

The young Ambeau-ian was sulking there, watching her. She couldn't understand its fascination with her. The others of its species, aside from confining her in their village, gave her no more attention than a blade of grass in a field.

The young Ambeau-ian came back into the hut. Its stiff gait, bowed head, and fugitive glances were easy to read. Romana knew that if she were to get anymore information off this child she would have to earn its trust.

"Settle down, I'm not angry," she said.

The young Ambeau-ian sat, but the new position only seemed to increase its wariness. He (she decided to call him he, though there was no scientific evidence to support the conclusion) looked back at the door to the hut. Romana offered him some of the bread. He took the food gingerly.

"There now, see? I'm not going to hurt you. What's your name?"

She felt silly that she hadn't asked this basic question to begin with. The young Ambeau-ian didn't answer. He seemed very confused.

"Yellow age," he finally said, his toothless newt mouth full of bread.

Romana wondered if that was his actual name or a title given to all youth. Perhaps Ambeau-ian culture had no concept of names.

"It's very nice to meet you Yellow age. I'm called Romana."

"Roe-mahn-naaaa."

"Yes, that's it."

She doubted Yellow age would have been able to pronounce her real title. It didn't matter; Romanadvoratrelundar wasn't her name anymore. It hadn't been for some time.

"Could you tell me about the danger?" she asked. "About the thing that fell from the sky."

"Not supposed to talk about it," Yellow age said. The bread was gone and the young Ambeau-ian was staring at the floor again.

"Why not?"

"It might spread."

"What might spread?"

Yellow age's head bobbed. She couldn't read that gesture, though she thought it had something to do with the young Ambeau-ian's nervousness.

"We keep them apart," it said, "they screamed."

"Who screamed?"

"They did, they do. Every night. Soon."

Yellow age cocked his head. Romana copied the gesture. She listened hard for… she wasn't sure what the young Ambeau-ian meant her to hear. Screams. But she heard none. Instead there was a faint crying. Breathing that came ragged. A high pitched moan that rose only to be swallowed into the echoes of the approaching night.

"Under the trees we keep them," said Yellow age, "finger-many other yellows. They were playing. They were seeing where it made its home. Pain ate them all up." He paused, ihis mouth fish gasping, before continuing the story. "One all alone came back with Fear and the Runners. They made others afraid so we put them under the trees, but everyday Fear spreads, and we aren't knowing when Pain will come to eat us."

Romana's brow furrowed. Did everything the Ambeau-ians said have to be cryptic?

"Could you show me where the thing from the sky made its home?" she asked.

"Mustn't go there. Pain will eat you up."

That was the danger then. She still didn't have all the information she needed, and as such her deductions couldn't be entirely accurate, but having travelled with the Doctor and having a basic grasp of logic she could think of a few possibilities. Stun guns held by the downed ship's crew perhaps. Fear was a more interesting problem. It sounded like some kind of virus brought back from the crash site. Romana knew that space viruses could have devastating effects on those who lacked immunity. A primitive settlement like this might be completely wiped out.

"Could you show me the ones with Fear?" she asked Yellow age, "the ones under the trees?"

"It might spread to you."

"I'm not afraid," said Romana. Why would she be? She had had all of her shots after all. She was a Time Lord a virus that downed these newt people would be easily shrugged off by her advanced immune system.

"Red age said to us all you say you might help," said Yellow age.

Romana nodded. She had said that to the big red-orange Ambeau-ian hadn't she?

"I will try."

"Other have thought that too," said Yellow age, "but Fear catches us all. It caught the Runners before they ran and now it follows us. I'm afraid and that makes me scareder."

Yellow age turned up its nose as if sniffing the air. It turned to Romana.

"You come now to trees and save the yellow, orange, and red all the way to eggs?"

"Yes," said Romana. She would.

With that promise, a piece of gossamer winged hope, she followed Yellow age out of the hut and into the dusky Ambeau-ian twilight.


	6. Chapter 6

They were tied to trees.

Gibbering wrecks of themselves. Pale, with milky tears running from their eyes. Romana, who had seen much and been trained towards detachment, felt her hearts go out to the poor creatures under the trees. There were over a score of them, a representation of red, orange, and yellow. Mostly yellow.

Yellow age made a strange sound deep in his throat and ran to one of the yellows. It was very small, and its strange proportions spoke of early childhood. It's pale, quivering body oozed from a dozen wounds. Yellow age clucked and whimpered, but did not touch the stricken child.

Slipping out of the village had been easy. Yellow age was a skilful guide. He had effortlessly led Romana past the nightwatch and then deep into the blue forest.

They walked. They walked for ages, or it might have been a very brief time. Time was relative after all. And as they walked the moans and sobs grew louder.

Then the screams began.

Not vocal screams as she had been expecting, but a staggering wall of mental attack. Such howls of anguish belonged to gruesome myth rather than life. Romana nearly staggered at the intensity of the noiseless noise before building a firm physic barrier against it. She thought of Yellow age's mental silence and realised why she had been unable to pick up any physic activity from him: he was also shielded. They all were.

Empathes.

The word chimed a tumble of reasons:

A species of empathes living on a peaceful planetoid. A spaceship crashes and releases a virus. A mental meta-virus. The species must then shut off its empathetic capabilities to prevent themselves from being driven mad by the screams of the victims. It was all very logical.

No small wonder the Ambeau-ians had acted so vaguely towards her. One of their senses had been cut off. They were blind men (newts) stumbling towards an unfamiliar problem.

And, logic aside, she didn't know how to help. She had promised, but, staring at the wreckage produced by the plague, Romana didn't have a clue. Several ideas, but no way to implement them on her own, and she didn't know the way back to the TARDIS. A thought occurred to her.

"Where are the Runners?" she asked Yellow age.

"The Runners are dead," he said, not turning to look at her. He continued cooing at the infected child in front of him, it wasn't responding. There was a desperate look in Yellow age's eyes. The child's head hung limply and Romana wondered if it had already sunk into the beyond.

"They brought the Fear and fell to the nothing, that side," Yellow age said. Still not looking at her, one of his arms lifted and pointed deeper into the forest.

Romana nodded her thanks and started in the new direction leaving Yellow age to his business. She wondered what her guide's connection was to the infected child — Friend? Family? Simple compassion for one so young? She remembered a time when such emotions would have left her baffled. The forest was getting darker and the ground rougher. She had to concentrate more on her steps than her thoughts.

It wasn't enough to keep her from stumbling. She suppressed a gasp at the realisation of what she had tripped over. A body. The clearing in front of her was filled with bodies, all in various states of decomposition. It was strange that she couldn't smell them, but then again, Time Lord olfactory senses weren't exactly developed, and the cold, thin night air probably had a hard time holding onto the molecules which would have produced odour.

Romana couldn't see much by the dim light, but it was enough to know that the corpses were not Ambeau-ians. By their compact forms she would wager they were from a world or system where gravity was a more trying force. They were wearing uniforms. She started to bend down in order to closer examine the fabric when something rammed into the back of her leg. Romana turned to greet her assailant, and found a friend.

"Oh K-9!"

He looked up at her with every ounce of loyalty in his tin heart. His face sparkling with frost. If robot dogs had tongues K-9 would have slobbered all over her face, as it was he wagged his tail so hard Romana worried about it falling off. The little dog's wheels were jammed with grass and his casing appeared chewed on, but he was all in one piece.

"You found me!" she said, "Good dog K-9!"

'Affirmentive.'

Romana bent down and encased his metal siding in a glorious hug, but not for too long. She quickly rose, along with her sense of purpose.

"Now that you’re here we can go back to the TARDIS. I'm sure that the Doctor will have — set his socks on fire wondering about me. He doesn't do well on his own you know."

'Negetive'

Romana sighed, and ignored the interjection.

"He's probably still in the library you know, pouring over that book of his."

K-9's eyes blinked rapidly and his ears spun.

'Negetive Mistress, scan indicates that the Doctor is not in the TARDIS.'

"Then he'll be in the middle of whatever danger those newt-people were muttering on about," she said.

K-9 slowly lowered his head. Perfect, now she would have to deal with whatever mess the Doctor had made before completing her promise to help the Ambeau-ians with their plague. Why did all of these things always fall to her?

"Come on then K-9, we'd better go rescue him."


	7. Chapter 7

After a quick word with Yellow age, who begged her not to go, Romana set out to find the Doctor.

According to K-9 he was somewhere in the amber field. Romana panted hard and relied on K-9's sensors to guide her in the near pitch dark as she stalked between the long blades of grass. She was intensely grateful that the biting insects which had terrorized her ankles earlier were not active at night. To balance that small blessing the temperature had dropped exponentially, and Romana, Time Lord physiology and all, was shivering.

They passed the TARDIS but did not stop, K-9 was very persistent that they find the Doctor before doing anything else.

After walking for an eternity she saw it rising out of the darkness, black on black, a huge hump rearing out of the grasslands with its edges lost to the night. The ground around it was scorched bare of grass and smelled of smoke, and cinder, and space. Romana set down K-9.

Best she could see it was a space ship, as she had predicted. A Balutian starliner to be precise. The Doctor could be anywhere within it, and Romana couldn't see an entrance, and of course there was still the "Danger" to deal with. She took a step forward, whatever it was she would face it when she came to it. There was no sense in flustering over unsubstantiated threats.

"K-9?" she asked.

The little dog obliged her and blew a hole in the side of the ship.

Romana waited for the hole to stop smoking and glowing red around the edges before picking up K-9 and stepping through into the inner hull of the ship. The repair lights were on, and Romana wondered if she was alone in the crawlspace, perhaps the owners of the ship were doing their best to make it space worthy again. She hoped that they didn't have violent inclinations towards intruders.

She turned around slowly, examining her surroundings. The crawlspace was narrow and cramped with ducts and wires. A dead alien of the type she had seen in the woods lay in front of her, an officer by the uniform. She turned a bit more, and nearly dropped K-9 when she saw the Doctor.

He was just hanging there. His arms twisted at an awkward angle above his head and tied by —

"I did warn you about that scarf," she said, giving him an eye-ball examination for visible wounds, and hoping that she wouldn't have to bring him through a forced regeneration. That could be nasty.

He didn't respond, which was what she had expected. He looked deeply unconscious. Romana put down K-9 and took a step forward. She meant to untie the Doctor, but realised before she reached him that would be impossible: her body was far too short to reach the knots binding him. Romana cursed her reluctance to take the tall Athenian body she had tried on during her regeneration. Vanity would be her undoing.

She looked at K-9 and wondered how much power he had left. His eyes were glowing dim, but, sensing his Mistress's distress, he faithfully extended his nose gun. A red line shot out and the top half of the Doctor's scarf disintegrated.

Romana winced at that, knowing the sulk the Doctor would go on when he woke up. She winced harder at the sound his body made hitting the floor, though the thump was not so hard as it might have been in normal gravity. She kneeled beside him. He had a head wound, she could see that easily enough, though not how deep it was or what damage might lie beneath. His clothes were ripped and dirt-scuffed. His curly hair was clinging with grass. A whisper caught her attention.

The Doctor was muttering something, hard and fast and faint. Romana leaned close to hear it. Her fine gold hair hung loose over his face, cupping the whispers towards her ear.

"The way a crow shook down on me, the dust of snow from a hemlock tree. Has given my heart a change of mood, and saved some part of a day I-" The Doctor's frantic chant fell off. His eyes opened for the first time.

"Romana?"

He was looking right at her, but he said her name as if he were unsure, as if she might, at any moment, morph into something not-Romana. Something hideous and ready to main.

At the same time there was something infinitely reassuring about hearing his voice.

"Yes, it's me."

His grip on her hand tightened considerably. He started chanting again, but it was faltering, clumsy.

"And saved, and saved, and saved some part of a-"

He looked up at her with those giant eyes, slightly hazed, like oceans lost in mist.

"You must listen carefully Romana, I don't have much time." He took a deep breath. "Now, you mustn't listen to a thing I say."

His was obviously delirious.

"Of course you have time," she told him, "just rest."

He looked like he might follow her advice. Then he shook his head vigorously, snapping his drooping eyes open. He sat up like a bolt of lightning, disregarding her restraining arm.

"I don't like crows," he said very loudly, as if those four words could solve all of the universe's problems. Then he relaxed. His eyes slid shut, and gravity, low though it was, brought his back banging into impact with the floor.

"Doctor!" Romana shouted.

He did not respond.

She put her ear to his chest. His hearts, both of them, still pumped strongly, but the rhythm was off. A beat skipped here and there, only to come back double paced. As Romana listened his chest started to heave. Everything went haywire. She held him as his senseless form trembled.

"K-9!" she called, desperate for help.

'Medical scan Mistress?'

She let out a haggard yes. The little dog's ears spun. A small metal tube emerged from his nose with a click and projected a red field over the Doctor and her. The field swept up and down, once, twice.

'Please back up Mistress to avoid contamination of data.'

Romana gently lowered the Doctor's body to the floor and backed out of the range of the ray. It swept across the Doctor a few more times before retreating into K-9's nose. The metal tube retracted.

'Processing data. Scan reveals multiple sources of physical trauma: internal and external bruising, dislocation of left shoulder, dehydration, slight concussion.'

"Could any of those be causing this fit?" Romana asked. The Doctor had begun to shake violently. She quickly grabbed his head to keep him from bashing it against the floor.

'Possible response to shock. Possibility 28.8% Conclusion: fit is of unknown origin. The Master has injuries not picked up by scan, possibly an infection unknown to my data banks.'

"Oh K-9…"

The Doctor gradually stilled in her arms. His breathing and heart rate returned to normal, but his face was pale and moisture beaded beneath his shut eyes. She had to get him back to the TARDIS.

'Power supply to this unit at critical level,' beeped K-9.

"Take a nap K-9," Romana said, wishing she could do the same herself. Extended exposure to the planetoid's thin air was taking its toil. Her body felt limp and numb. Her fingers tingled with cold and each breath caught in her throat.

'Affirmative, This unit shutting down for re-charging cycle.'

K-9's eyes dimmed and his head lowered. Romana was left alone with only the unconscious Doctor for company. She racked her prestigious Time Lady brain for a way to carry him back to the TARDIS without inflicting further injury, but her thoughts kept twisting back on themselves. Her head felt heavy, an effect of too much blood as that which was pumped upwards by her powerful double-heart beat fell slower than was natural in the low gravity.

A noise rattled behind her. Metal clanging on metal. The sound of a maintenance hatch opening. Romana whirled, ready to fight whatever had abused the Doctor and killed the Starliner officer. She picked up the piece of piping stained with the Doctor's blood. Her fists were puny balls around it.

And promptly lowered it.

"Yellow age? What are you doing here?" and then more kindly, "You scared me half to death."

The young Ambeau-ian bobbed his head. The dim light caught against his yellow skin to produce a glowing effect.

"Much sorries. When you said you walking to the bad place… I could not let Pain eat you."

Romana sighed. She was irritated that Yellow age had followed her into danger, but glad for the company. The young Ambeau-ian approached her, ducking pipes and wires, giving the dead starliner officer a wide berth. He seemed wary, as always, practically trembling.

Stranger anxiety, said Romana's tired brain.

"Must leave," said Yellow age.

"Yes," said Romana, motioning at the fallen Doctor, "but I can't very well leave him here."

"Pain," Yellow age queried, or said, it was a strange intonation.

Romana let her eyes drift over the Doctor's prone form.

"I suppose so." She paused. "I need to get the Doctor back to our ship. He's injured. Will you help me?"

She looked again at Yellow age.

"Pain," he said again. That was a response, an explanation. She hated primitive language and its varied nuances. She longed for Yellow age to speak in simple, precise terms, something the TARDIS could pick up on and translate properly, and but supposed that she should be happy he could speak at all. If his people were natural empathes then telepathy was likely a more common form of communication than vocalised speech hence the marked under-development of the Ambeau-ian language.

"Pain," Yellow age said for a third time, almost whimpering.

Romana was suddenly very concerned for the youth's health. The Ambeau-ian seemed to have paled, but that might have been the light. A whitish substance was leaking from its eyes. He looked like one of the Fear victims.

"Are you alright?"

"I'm afraid. If I go back they'll put me under the trees. If I stay Pain will eat me. If I go. If I stay…"

Romana reached out and grabbed Yellow age's arm. She meant it as a calming gesture, but the youth jumped back. His soft newt skin was fevered. A tingling entered Romana's hand. She let go of Yellow age's arm and took a deep breath.

He was infected. She was infected. But her physiology was stronger. She wouldn't turn into a mad thing would she? A crazed beast that had to be bound hand and foot to keep it from renting its own flesh?

Yellow age let out a startled noise and started to back away from her. A clump of loose wires brushed his head. He let out another yelp and fled out the hatch he had arrived from. Romana wanted to go after him. Wanted to stop him from injuring himself. But she didn't know how. And someone had to stay with the Doctor.

Time passed, stagnant, woolly time. K-9's ears twitched occasionally as he re-charged. The Doctor had another fit, less terrifying than the first. It ended quickly, for which Romana was grateful.

She couldn't touch him. Not for comfort. Not to keep his head from crashing again the hard metal floor if he fitted again like he had the first time. She turned her thoughts inward, examining the virus that was creeping through her veins and lodging in her cerebellum. She visualised it as malignant pellets of purple fluff gradually clogging her senses and making her see and reason as it wished her to see and reason. It was a mental meta-virus spread by physical contact. And it was strong.

It didn't affect Romana as severely as it did the Ambeau-ians or the crash victims. She didn't become a gibbering idiot or run until her heart burst from exhaustion, but she did develop a buzz at the back of her skull. She feared what might be lurking just out of sight. She feared for the Doctor. For herself. For K-9. What if the little dog couldn't recharge himself? What if…?

Unconscious of her actions she tucked her knees under her chin and began to rock. A cold wind and a glimmer of light seeped through the hole K-9 had blown in the hull. Dawn had arrived, but it did nothing to warm Romana as she began to spiral away into the midnight of the mind.


	8. Chapter 8

Fear ate away at Romana's defences, making her wallow in pessimism and self-pity:

He never really liked you. You're a burden to him. He only bears you because he has to; because you're so young and he feels responsible.

You're a failure. All that working for your precious Academy degree and you never got it. You're nothing but a drop-out. Even the Doctor has a degree, 51% on the second attempt, but he has it. All your pretending and posing, but what do you have to back it up? A stupid little certificate? Everyone has a certificate for something or other — it doesn't mean anything special. You're nothing special.

You really are pathetic, always playing your little games, thinking that you're SO superior to everyone. You're such a liar, and a thief. You stole that body from the Princess Astral after she died. It's your fault she's dead. It's your fault for all of them.

With a great effort, Romana wrenched her thoughts away from those dark broodings, and cleared enough of the shadows for her own personality to dominate the invader's.

"This is silly," she said out loud.

"I agree."

Romana's hearts jumped at the voice. She quickly untangled her knees from her chest and crawled to its source.

"Doctor?"

He struggled to sit up. His eyes were unfocused and he held his dislocated arm stiffly. He looked confused and lost, but his voice was as rich and playful as ever, without a trace of its earlier insanity.

"Most of me anyway, ouch, what did that brute do to my arm?"

"Don't try to move," Romana said. She hovered over him, not sure what she could do to help without the luxury of physical contact. "What happened?" she asked.

"Oh, nothing much. I did a bit of exploring, got knocked on the head by my friend over there…" He nodded towards the dead starliner officer. "…got to play the role of piñata, was infected by a weaponised meta-virus…"

The Doctor scratched his jaw with his good hand.

"It took me a good long while to shake off its influences. Nasty thing." He blinked. "Romana, why are you acting like that?"

"Like what?"

"Hovering Romana, hovering like a mother bumble bee."

"I…"

"Never mind. It doesn't matter. Now listen carefully. This meta-virus is divided into two parts."

"Pain and Fear," Romana rattled off.

He looked at her curiously, but didn't ask how she knew.

"Yes. It was released on this ship. The Fear drives everyone mad while the Pain stalks around killing. A very clever piece of genetic engineering, if a bit insane, but then, most clever individuals are. But before the virus could run its course the ship crashed onto this little rock. The ones affected by Fear ran out, while the host infected by Pain stayed behind." He again nodded at the corpse of the Balutian who had tormented him. "That would be our friend over there. Lively isn't he?"

The Doctor laughed for no apparent reason before clutching his midsection and grimacing.

"Jelly baby? Oh no, they all fell out. That's the problem with being a piñata you understand?"

Romana's breath caught in her throat. He was slipping into insanity again and she didn't know if she could catch him back. They didn't have the time; the ones under the trees didn't have the time.

"No, I don't understand. Doctor this virus is spreading."

"Oh?"

"The inhabitants of this planet are infected," she said, "They have no natural immunity. It's devastating them."

Yellow age's paling face and weeping eyes flashed to the forefront of her mind. A score of lost souls chained under the trees. There had to be some way to help them. If only she could get back to the TARDIS, but she couldn't leave the Doctor lying half-dead in an abandoned starliner, and she wasn't she he was fit enough to walk, perhaps in the low-gravity she could carry him…

"Plagues for the New World," the Doctor mused, "Whoever engineered this virus got a bit carried away. It's gone beyond eliminating a single starliner."

"Yes?" Romana said, her mind scattered like a kaleidoscope.

"Yes," said the Doctor. He sounded annoyed, but Romana knew that was a cover for the pain. His eyes had closed again.

He opened them.

"This virus is controlled by a central intelligence. It will be looking for an escape from this planetoid. It wants to spread across the galaxy and nothing will be able to stop it."

The Doctor's eyes widened impossibly. He was staring towards Romana, but not at her. His gaze travelled farther than that to the despicable future that the virus would try to obtain. Romana remembered something he had told her after their visit to Skaro, about Davros and his insanity. She wondered if another broken genius had plotted this virus, and to what end?

"We must stop it," said Romana, her thoughts assembling from random dots into a clear pattern.

"Yes," he said, followed by a long, pained considering, "Romana, you must return to Gallifrey and summon aid to this world immediately."

"No," she said firmly, though she knew by his voice and eyes that he was lost. The Doctor would never ask the Time Lords for help except as a last resort.

"I thought you would jump at the idea," he said, his voice brimming with false jocosseness, "to get away from me since I'm such a stubborn, old, egotistic, childish, churlish, unpredictable, irresponsible busy-maker?"

He was. She didn't care.

"Me? Want to return to Gallifrey? Honestly Doctor, I could regenerate twelve times happy without visiting that planet again."

He looked at her. Something unnerving lurked at the back of his gaze. Something very unDoctor. She felt almost afraid of him, but that was silly. She shrugged it off as the meta-virus attacking her perception.

"I can't hold it forever," he said, and his voice sounded very tired, very old.

"I can't," she said, looking at him, willing him to understand, wishing that she wasn't so selfish and afraid. Some Time Lady she was — whatever happened to emotional detachment? Her eyes burned with invisible tears.

"You can. I can't leave this world: I'm bearing the main entity. If I stepped into the TARDIS it would have free reign over time and space. Think about it Romana: No tea. No jelly babies. Just hurt and misfortune until the end of time."

"If I return to Gallifrey they won't let me leave," said Romana, not caring how childish or selfish she sounded. "I can't return to that life. I know I always say I'm going to over-ride the randomiser and do it, but I…"

"The randomiser?" asked the Doctor. His eyes were going bleary. Romana wondered if that was an effect of the virus or his injuries.

"Yes Doctor, the one you installed to throw off the Black Guardian."

"Oh." He said it more as a sigh. His eyes were closing again. Romana's eyes darted between him and the hole K-9 had punched through the hull. She could feel sweat on her forehead and it made for a strange sensation; She hadn't been aware that she could sweat. She blamed it on the virus.

There had to be another way out.

"I can't leave you alone Doctor, you're hurt."

"K-9 will look after me," he said, his voice drifting towards the border of sleep, "I'll be more hurt if Gallifrey cannot synthesise a cure. You must go to Gallifrey Romana. It is imperative. You must let nothing stop you."

"I don't want to lose you Doctor," she whispered. She took a long breath, and then said something else, something barely audible and cupped to his ear by her fine blond hair.

Words brought on by Fear. Words forbidden by her upbringing and conditioning. Words that would have made her the butt of every joke at the Academy. She didn't care.

"I love you."

He did not respond. The Doctor had slipped back into unconsciousness. His tightly lidded eyes flickered with the turmoil of the battle he was fighting inside.

With heavy hearts and the phantom of fear nibbling at the back of her mind, Romana left the starliner through the hole in its hull, and started the long trek back to the TARDIS.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter took simply f-o-r-e-v-e-r to write and I'm still not half-happy with it. Four's voice is HARD which is probably why he hasn't made many appearances in this story. There are plenty of episode references in here (electronic cookies to the person who catches them all), and plenty of quotes, though I think it's made obvious where they come from in the text.

The Doctor sat in a room in his mind. Pristine white, with roundels set evenly along the walls — it could have been any room in the TARDIS, but it wasn't. It was an archetype, a distillation of the Doctor's home and sanctuary transposed into a mental construct.

The Doctor sat slumped against a wall, his knees tucked to his chest, his elbows pulled close. His coat, hat, and scarf were gone, and without them he looked naked, awkward and gangly.

And tired.

There was exhaustion, like a heavy, grey cloud, covering every inch of his body. He looked like a man being forced to run marathon after marathon without sleep or substance. His eyes were closed and his brow furrowed in deep concentration as ripples of tension worked their way up and down his back.

The Doctor wasn't real — just another mental projection, a body to keep his mind sane. The image of the Doctor muttered to itself: a constant stream of words and ideas that flowed out to be lost on the uncaring walls of his refuge, his jail.

This room, this tiny meta-physical fortress, was the only protection he had left, and the enemy was at the gates. He could hear it grating at the lock, wearing down his defences and psychic blocks.

Pain

It had had its way with him before he staggered into this place. Before he discovered how to ward it off it had twisted him through every conceivable agony in an attempt to break his mind and possess him fully, but the Doctor was stronger than that. Though he had been forced to relinquish control of his body and most of his memories, the Doctor's mind had survived in this little room. He would not be crushed. Gods had tried and failed, other viruses had tried and failed.

The virus on the other side of the door knew this. It also knew that those failed attempts had left scars, and chinks in the Doctor's mental armour. It was only a matter of time before the damaged chain mail fell away and Pain would be able to lap up its victim's blood. Only a matter of time before the Doctor ran out of words and fell silent, defenceless…

"…Devouring Time blunt thou the lion's paws,  
And make the earth devour her own sweet brood…"

The words trod steadily off the Doctor's tongue. He silently thanked his good friend Shakespeare for writing so many excellent sonnets. So many that he sprained his wrist. The image of the Doctor smiled slightly.

You will not last forever, Pain hissed from its place behind the door.

We will see, said the Doctor. The voice echoed from the walls; they were as much a part of the Doctor's mental image as the false body crouched on the floor.

"…Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws,  
And burn the long-lived phoenix, in her blood…"

I will take you again Doctor. Your reactions to my ministrations were most satisfactory before, I wish to see them again.

"One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish," the Doctor's projection said defiantly, trading one poem for another.

I do love Doctor Sues, don't you? So bright and cheerful. Just the thing for chasing away the boogie man

Your stumbling words have no effect on me. Words have no power in the mind. They must be spoken aloud to chase the darkness, and even then I am more powerful. I will conquer you.

"…So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,  
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee…"

The Doctor slipped back into Shakespeare.

You haven't been able to force your way into this room yet. My stumbling words seem to be holding you back. Now if you'll excuse me, I have seventeen more sonnets to go.

The projection made a rude gesture.

You will not last forever. I have already sent an emissary to your home world, she will spread my twin's embrace through the galaxy and return with new wings for me.

The throat on the Doctor's projection bobbed, though the stream of poetry did not stop. The voice became raspier than before, tense through gritted teeth. Pain laughed at the reaction.

She has already gone, and with your blessing.

The walls of the room vibrated with anger. Romana was infected, and she had been deceived by Pain pretending to be him. Pain with access to his memories. Pain with a silver tongue. If she was going to Gallifrey then there was no hope left for the universe; not if the plague spread to the Lords of Time. Those dry form-pushers wouldn't know creativity and life if it slapped them in the face. They would have no immunity. Pain was at the door, waiting…

"…Then, were not summer's distillation left  
A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass…"

The Doctor started shouting the words, losing all cadence and rhythm.

The presence laughed and moved away from the door.

Continue to defy me then. Time will steal your vigour, and I will steal your soul. She will aid me, and you, dear Doctor, will die in agony.

The Doctor's shouts died back into murmurs. As good as it felt to yell, his voice would not last long at that volume. He pressed his thumbs to his temples and chanted, trying to marshal strength for Pain's next attack. Romana would not fall to the meta-virus's cheap tricks. She must not: since he was trapped in a mental cage, and the fate of the universe lay in her hands.


	10. Chapter 10

Romana slumped against the console taking deep breaths of oxygen rich TARDIS air. Sterile, tasteless, and wonderful to her burning lungs. Her maniacally beating hearts calmed to a steady double-timed thrum.

She had done it. Overcome the Fear.

She would return to Gallifrey and get help, and after she would return to her travels with the Doctor. They couldn't stop her (well, they could… don't think of that the Fear will come back) but saving the Doctor was more important than staying with him. Because the Doctor wasn't normal. He was spice and vigour and hope, and everything that had been suppressed and cut-down to fit at the Academy.

Romana didn't know, couldn't know, that the Fear was still with her, only now it worked on a different bundle of nerves, driving her to complete its master's goal.

The stupid, bloody randomiser!

Romana practically shouted at the obnoxious, useless piece of equipment. She had always fancied she could over-ride it anytime she pleased, but it was proving more difficult than she had imagined. And every wasted second could be killing the Doctor.

She kicked the TARDIS console.

The lights went out.

"I'm sorry…" she said to the ship. Why was she saying sorry? It was only a ship. A piece of inorganic mechanics.

She shook her head. That hadn't been her thought, it had come from… elsewhere.

Hurry, hurry

The ship's lights flickered. The console controls sparked whenever she tried to put her hands near them.

He's in danger. He's dying. Hurry!

She grabbed the randomiser with both hands, ignoring the dark, and the shocks the TARDIS was sending her. If she could re-route the mechanism's power supply and detour it back to the source…. The wiring didn't look terribly complex: the usual hodge-podge, mess-jumble the Doctor created; annoying but not difficult.

On a whim she touched two exposed cords together. The console began to whine and fade from white to deep mauve. A small fireworks display ruined any progress Romana might have made.

"You stupid ship! Don't you see I'm trying to help?"

She pulled back as a particularly nasty shock burned her hand and cleared her mind. She was a Time Lord for Rassilon's sake. She didn't panic like this, like, like a Time Tot locked out of the nursery. She took several long deep breaths and forced her emotions under control.

The voice in her head continued telling her to hurry, but now she was calm enough to know that the voice wasn't her own. It was Fear again. And that was very strange, because shouldn't Fear be telling her to stay?

Romana rubbed her temples. Her head felt like someone had pushed a wad of cloth into one ear and was slowly pulling it out the other, but with concentration she could drown the voice out. The TARDIS was helping.

Further in, farther from the source. Go to safety, go to rest.

Romana blinked. That wasn't the Fear. That was the TARDIS. Romana knew from experience and from her Academy training how rare it was for a TARDIS consciousness to give explicit instructions. The Doctor's ship was a bit unconventional for the most part, but generally she did not talk directly to people's heads. Romana felt strangely privileged. And she complied, walking away from the console room, and further into the TARDIS's near infinite bowels, farther from the source.

The source.

It must be the Doctor Romana realised, possessed by the main entity, out there, alone and half-mad on an alien world. Well, she shrugged, that was his usual state of being, but this time… She was amazed at how lucid he had managed to stay while giving her the instructions to go to Gallifrey (instructions she still hadn't followed hurry, hurry). He had remained so calm and brave in the face of such —

Romana stopped in the middle of the corridor, frowning.

Calm. The Doctor was never calm. He could feign it, true, but a manic sort of energy always lurked below the surface. He was like a child, always fidgeting. Then there had been his half-delusional warning before he fell unconscious the first time. She had put it down to his injuries (he had a head wound after all). But now she wondered, and cursed her own stupidity and apparent inability to spot the obvious when it stared her in the face.

No, that's a terrible thought. That isn't true. Ignore it. Hurry. Hurry! He'll die! Hurry!"

Romana raised her hands to her head again. A bit of pressure muted the voice long enough to let her wonder a bit more. When she lowered them she realised where she was. The TARDIS had led her to the library. She stepped into the comfortable room and the voice instantly stopped its tirade. It sunk to a distant roar, low and easily ignored.

The fire was long since burned out, nothing left but a lump of char. A book lay on the Doctor's big over-stuffed chair. The one he had been quoting to her from earlier. Romana picked it up, not knowing what else to do, and a bit curious to see if she could find the yellow woods poem again. It had been nice. She sped-read through the book in a few seconds (she did not know how profoundly unwise and unsafe it could be to rush poetry). The volume dropped from her limp fingers and her eyes glazed.

Roaring, rushing, a tide of words and water striking down her mental barriers. Killing, killing- no, purifying, freeing -

A wave of quiescence washed over the derbies left by the tide, leaving behind a mental plain of smooth, unblemished sand.

Romana shook her head. The Fear was gone. A bit of soreness remained, like a scab between her eyes, where it had been, but the meta-virus was, undeniably, gone. In that moment she had her epiphany:

Plants and people really were quite the same. Roots needed to be watered, leaves needs to be sprayed, and people, no matter the species of birth, or up-bringing, or any other degree of cosmic separation, shared the same basic fears and pains. They also shared the same long thread of hope.

Everything in balance and everything held in a sheaf of organic fibres spattered with ink. Romana began to understand the Doctor's fascination with primitive books and languages. Gallifrey would never have been able to produce something like this.

Scientifically she didn't know why it worked, but for the moment that didn't matter. Offering silent thank yous to the TARDIS, Romana donned a coat from the wardrobe, put several likely looking books — including the one that cured her — into a matching pink carry-bag, and headed out the door to save the day.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At long last I post more. Sorry about the wait guys. The excerpt Romana reads is from The Pasture by Robert Frost, which just happens to be the first poem in the Frost book I have. Her second poem is (I hope) pure invention, though I'm sure I've probably unconsciously stolen most of it from elsewhere. And a warning, for the faint of heart, Four goes a bit nuts in this chapter. I just love evil Four, don't you?

When Romana returned to the starliner the Doctor was gone and K-9 lay vandalised on the grilled floor, half his insides spilling out in a mess of feebly sparking wires and circuit boards. She knelt to pat the dog's side. K-9 wheeled his ears weakly in response, and Romana bit her lip, glad that robot dogs didn't feel pain.

The crawlspace was a mess: maintenance lights were smashed, and ducts were pulled lose from their moorings. The corpse of the Balutian officer had been ripped open, and Romana averted her eyes from the slimy gore.

She didn't want to believe what must have happened here.

She knew it wasn't him, that the Doctor was under the influence of an incredibly strong and dubiously intentioned meta-virus, but the thought of him tearing open K-9 — his best friend — and then turning that violence on a corpse…

Romana wondered what she might have turned into if the TARDIS hadn't saved her.

K-9's eyes were blinking.

'Mistress?'

"Shhh," she told him, continuing to stroke an undamaged part of his panelling. The little dog's eyes didn't stop flashing.

'S-sen-sensors in-in-indicate…'

"What is it K-9?"

'Sen-sensors in-in-indicate Doctor heading towards---- towards---towar---'

K-9's voice fell into a ragged course of muffled electronic squeaks. The sound of churning gears wrenched Romana's heart as the little dog struggled to complete his message, but the strain was too great. K-9's ears stilled and his eyes dimmed. He looked peaceful, like he was in the middle of his re-charging cycle, and Romana wished that appearances and truth would reconcile, but reality would be cruel.

Romana wanted to kick something, to scream her grief and frustration. Instead she kept her emotions carefully suppressed and assessed the situation. The Doctor could not have returned to the TARDIS — she would have passed him on the way — and that left only one logical place for him to head towards.

The settlement.

The Ambeau-ians had been so afraid that Pain would come to eat them. Romana had sworn to protect them, but she had never thought she would be protecting them against the Doctor.

She patted K-9 one last time, and stood up.

"Good dog," she said, sniffing discretely when he did not reply.

???

 

Romana ran through the long grass for hours heedless of biting insects or burning lungs. She did not believe the Doctor could travel quickly in his injured state, but he had a head start and who knew what feats his possessor might compel his broken body to perform. It was no infirm person who had rained savage blows to break K-9's titanium casing. Still, she dared to hope —

But all those thin beliefs were crumbled to dust when she, gasping and aching in limb and spirit, reached the village.

It burned. As did the forest behind it: blue trees sending up eerie violet flames, the grass huts in the foreground crumpling and twisting into ash. Ambeau-ians ran past her. Their amber skin seethed with burns and flickering to the tune of the fire. Most were infected. She saw ropes still trailing from those who had been set free from the trees. She wanted to read to them — release them from their agony — but could not. She could save one, or three, or half, but the rest would still fall and the Pain would still be amongst them. No. The only thing she could do was harden her heart, and step into the inferno.

The crisp heat of the fire replaced the chill bite of the planetoid's air as she stepped into the wreckage of the settlement. Her species did not do well with heat, and the abrupt change made her skin tingle and hiss. She set her lips tightly and took another step. Smoke burned her eyes. Her vision changed to red and black mist. She could not breath and was grateful for her by-pass system, though engaging it black-spotted her vision.

Then, before she had even begun to look, she found him:

Practically naked, with his bare body smoke smeared. Red and emerald flame burst in a ring around him. He looked like a primitive god, or devil, demanding worship or blood from his subjects. He was dripping with blood, but Romana couldn't tell if it was his own or one of the natives. She hoped the former, though the idea of the Doctor being more injured than he was when she left him made her hearts plummet, but if he had killed…

She didn't think the Doctor would ever forgive himself for that. Possessed or not. If he had killed he was lost.

She unloosed her purse from her shoulder and dug a book from its depths. The Doctor, or rather the Pain, had not yet noticed her presence; it would soon.

She began to speak:

"I'm going out to clean the pasture spring; I'll only stop to rake the leaves away…"

And continue, starting at the beginning of the book that had saved her and moving through it in a blitz. The Pain seemed not to noticed, only stood, blank-eyed in the mouth of the towering flames. Skin peeled from his blackened shins. She caught a sob in her throat with the realisation that it was probably too late. She returned the book to her purse only to retrieve another, to read it, with the same results.

When she finished, and before she could grab another volume, the Pain laughed, and it was the most terrible thing Romana had ever heard. It was the Doctor's laugh. His hale, wondering, child-laugh twisted by this monster into something mocking.

"You don't scare me," Romana said. And truthfully it didn't. She saw before her the worst thing that could be done to a person being done to the one person she had ever loved. Life and death suddenly didn't matter so much, and she wondered if this was how the Doctor felt ploughing into his adventures. The reason he wasn't afraid to get hurt if another was saved because of it.

"You don't harm me," hissed the Pain, and then laughed again to watch her flinch. "He is lost."

The firelight sent strange patterns across the Doctor's bare chest. There were scars there, and not all from the Pain's attack. The Doctor had been hurt before, tortured, wronged.

"You're wrong," said Romana, and even as she looked into the Doctor's dead eyes, devoid of the smallest mote of his former identity, she knew she spoke the truth. The Doctor was a survivor, and this Pain, this presumptuous virus, was only a brief distraction from a life that roared and rushed with purpose. He was far more than an ordinary Time Lord, or an ordinary anything, he was The Doctor. He would outlive this attack. He would outlive everything. Even her. Of this Romana was sure.

The Pain answered with silence.

"And who are you?" Romana asked.

Pain answered with its predictable howl: "Agony! Hurt! Death! The teeth that bite in the rabid dog's mou —"

Romana cut it off mid-word: "Yes, I know that, but who are you? What is your purpose?"

"My purpose is —"

"What were you made to do?"

The Pain leaped forward and grabbed Romana by the neck. She had to fight not to close her eyes. To look into the face of her attacker.

"I am life," Pain rasped, revealing its inner darkness and breathing smoke out of its pit-like mouth. Its face stretched so that it was no longer the Doctor's, but a terrible, ravenous thing. But Romana did not flinch.

"What is pain?" she rasped, "but a part of life? To warn us when things are about to go wrong. What is fear; But the beginning of courage? What is sorrow; But a prelude to joy?"

Her consciousness was fading, not from lack of oxygen (she hadn't taken air into her lungs since entering the flames), but from a reduction of blood flow. The blood in her brain, already sluggish to leave in the low-gravity, was now pooling, threatening her life.

Yet, with the prospect of a forced regeneration and possible death looming before her, poetry started to spill from her lips. Loose and raw without rhyme or meter. A by-product of her speed reading perhaps, or her clotted mind.

"What is death; But another kind of life? What is —"

She felt drowsy. Strange. Like floating.

"Nothing gold," she murmured, suddenly understanding, and then fainted.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Un-beta'd and probably awful *grins sheepishly* but it's finished ya know? Well, last chapter anyway, there's also the epilogue whish *is* beta'd by a weird time fluke thing.

Life came back with tepid sluggishness. Sensation and thought convalesced into a bleary form of consciousness. Romana did not open her eyes.

She felt new, and wondered if she had regenerated. She felt some pain, dull aches, and flame around her neck, but it was not the sort of hurt linked with gaining a new body. Just regular pain. Life pain. Letting her know she was still alive. She seemed to be resting on something warm and she liked that since everything else around her was so cold. She thought about falling asleep again, about resting until her hurts disappeared. She would wake up in her cubical on Gallifrey. Her certificate would be smiling on the wall. She would go to class and be lauded for her skill in temporal engineering. She would —

The warmth beneath her shifted, tilting her thoughts to one side. There was something she was missing in her woozy half-realised state. She wanted to return to Gallifrey, to home and security, to her friends —

you don't have any friends

It wasn't a voice or possession: only a memory. With truth and falsehood held between its lies in equal measure. She had no friends on Gallifrey, but here —

Where was she?

Romana opened her eyes. The first thing she saw was the sky: dust and crimson flushed with streaks of gold. The next thing she saw was the Doctor's face. His frighteningly large smile. His honest, star-struck eyes, pure of any trace of virus.

"I knew," she said.

"Welcome back," he said, and she felt like repeating the sentiment to him. She also felt slightly miffed: she had saved him and he was leaning over her like she was some kind of damsel in distress. She would have put him in his place had she owned the strength. As it was she could only glare, but that glare seemed to want to turn into a smile, and a laugh, and she wasn't sure why. Maybe it was the realisation that he was naked when he usually wore so many clothes.

"What happened?" she asked, not wanting to ask, but having to. Her pride demanded it. She knew she had saved him, but the logistics had gone out of her head along with everything else. She didn't remembered.

"I was dead," the Doctor said, and stopped, "It needed a new host. It couldn't fight both of us."

"I don't remember much of anything," he quickly added, "which is rather wonderful since I have the distinct impression that it was rather unpleasant. My arm certainly hurts. Nasty business. Of course, none of this would have happened if you hadn't been so presumptuous in the TARDIS, insulting my favourite poem…"

Most other times she would have answered with a snide remark. A roll of the eyes. A turn of the head. Now she could only lay and let it pass. She didn't particularly care. He was alive. She was alive. If she didn't have the slightest clue how what did it matter?

She vaguely remembered a time when such uncertainties would have flew her into a rage (against herself mostly) but now she was content to float on the sea of her best friend's lap. She also vaguely remembered that friend's friendly smile stretching into a devouring maw as a slimy black worm worked its way out. She remembered black-spotted vision. The feel of the worm as it tried to force its way down her throat. The bitter, burning taste of the worm's guts as she bit down, poem ended, meaning unfurled.

"Why poetry?" she asked.

Long silence and no answer. He didn't remember or know. She didn't care. She floated. It was nice. She lifted her head a little to see what surrounded her little sea of peace. Ash, it turned out, and embers, in stacks all around them. The beautiful grass city of the Ambeau-ian had been laid waste.

But that wasn't the only thing she saw —

The Ambeau-ians themselves were gathered in a circle around them. At a respective distance. She counted at least three score of them, red, yellow, orange. Some still wore the frayed ropes of their imprisonment. All of the faces were clear of milk tears and madness. A great calmness hung about them.

'Thank you'

It was a mental caress that contained intricacies of meaning and precision beyond anything she had ever heard. It was the antithesis of the Ambeau-ians stuttering speech, but contain all the same primitive frankness.

She smiled back at them and mustered from her tired body the response they wanted, needed — she had fulfilled her promise and saved them —

"It was nothing," she said, with a demure bend of the head. When she looked up she could see that the Doctor had eclipsed the sky with his smile. And she loved him.

???

The Ambeau-ians helped them back to the TARDIS, or, rather, carried them back. K-9 too. They had offered to let Romana and the Doctor stay on the planetoid until they were recovered, possibly giving advice on rebuilding as they convalesced, but the offer was quickly turned down. It was time to go.

And, Romana thought upon returning to the familiar white, time to stay. The Doctor went to the infirmary with a stubborn insistence that he could treat his own wounds, and she went to her room for a rest. Her fern still sprawled across the floor. She righted it and picked up her spray bottle to continuing watering it. She could sweep up the dirt later.

Rainbow droplets flew forward to perch on frilled emerald leaves. Water for the soul. There was so much more to run to than there was to run from. So much more to love than to fear.

She knew that she couldn't stay here forever. Eventually her home would call her back, and she would answer, eventually. Perhaps she might run a bit, but she would return. She wasn't made for the renegade life like the Doctor was. This soft white room would, one day, fade into memory and the Doctor would carry on without her. But it had happened. And in the end, that was all that mattered.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This ending is a bit different, hopefully it goes over well. Thanks: to ann_blue for her saint-like patience with both me and this story. If it weren't for her this last bit would have been lost to the back streets of cyberland forever, to Fleurdetemps who got the ball rolling, and to everyone who has stuck with this story to the end. YOU ALL ROCK!!!

  
Rose sauntered into the console room all bounce and smile.  
  
"Look what I found," she said to the Doctor's feet.  
  
The Doctor pulled himself out from where he had been making some repairs that had been due centuries back.   
  
"Oi, something could've blown up with you distracting me like that. This is delicate work this is." His jumper was spotted, cow-like, with grime and oil. He ineffectually tried to dust it off with his hands before grabbing his jacket from the strut he had hung it on for safe keeping. It didn't matter if his shirt got dirty; he had plenty of those, but the jacket was unique.  
  
Rose rolled her eyes and did that infernal tongue thing. The Doctor squeezed his own eyes shut. When he opened them she was waving something under his nose. Smelled like memories, looked like book.  
  
"Where'd you dig that up then?" he asked.  
  
"In the library. You were all going on and on about your magnificent ship —"  
  
" Oi! She is magnificent!"  
  
"You're so full of it." She winked devilishly. "And I decided to expand my mind like you're always saying I should…"  
  
He crossed his arms, not defensively; it was just such a natural posture for that body, he always found himself sinking into it without realising.  
  
"Show me then," he said.  
  
"Show you what?" she teased.  
  
"Your so marvellously expanded mind."  
  
"I will then. I memorised a poem."  
  
Strange activity, he thought. She wasn't the literary type, but she was nothing if not surprising — reason he travelled with her.  
  
She tossed him the book, just a thin paperback, rather worn. He caught it, and it was only then that he realised his mistake. He'd ignored this yellowed book for years, buried it in the very depths of the library next to the textbooks that belonged to a certain young Alzariun he'd travelled with for a while. That was a section of his life he liked to block out — too many ghosts.  
  
"I choose it 'cause it was the first thing I opened that didn't have quantum math or physics or something in it. Where do you keep all of the book books on this ship anyway?"  
  
He didn't answer. She shrugged.  
  
"Nature's first green is gold," she began, and he sucked in a deep breath and tried to keep himself expressionless. It was a failed attempt.  
  
Rose's eyes were screwed up in concentration, oblivious to the effect her stumbling words were having on her audience.  
  
So, so long ago… He had told her that he didn't remember a thing.   
  
"Then leaf subsides to leaf," Rose went on, too cheerfully, getting the rhythm all wrong, and clashing tone with meaning, "So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay."  
  
Instead he had badgered her about ruining his scarf. Never a thank you for his life. Only nagging, day after day, until she sat down and knitted him a new scarf, twice as long as the first. He couldn't complain after that.  
  
Rose opened her eyes and looked at him.  
  
"Blimey, I'm not that good," she said.  
  
The Doctor quickly cuffed away a tear. When he spoke his voice rasped in his throat.  
  
"No, proper poet you are, picked just my favourite one."  
  
Rose smiled and hugged him and bounced out of the console room. The Doctor leaned heavily against a support strut. While Rose had been reading his mind had been playing tricks, replacing Rose with another blond, a natural one; a smaller woman with more delicate features and an aristocratic bearing.   
  
The face of a princess. The face of a ghost.   
  
He remembered the feel of her hand in his. The flitting smell of Paris in springtime. The pride in his heart, and the sorrow when she disappeared into E-space, the joy when she came back… He remembered hiding in the back balconies of the Panoptican when she accepted the presidential sash. A petit form bowed down by purple velvet, ideals, and a sparkling smile staring down a million years of stagnation and corruption. She had refused to wear a collar since she was a free agent and a new beginning. Never had he been so proud of her.   
  
His Romana.  
  
He remembered her cracking voice over the TARDIS phone telling him that all was lost and he must be the one to pay. Telling him with brave words that everything withered in the end. That was life. He shouldn't be afraid - she always knew when he was lying.  
  
And then static had overtaken the line and she had gone. Forever.  
  
But still alive in his memories, gold as ever. The present came back into focus slowly. The memories slow to loose their grip. The Doctor raised his eyes to where the phantom had stood. He could hear Rose humming and laughing in the hall, and he swore that he would never let her go without telling her how much he cared.   
  
_finis_


End file.
